Editor's Note

The Charge

The truth behind the drama.

The Case

The release of Frost/Nixon, Ron Howard's dramatization of the 1977
interviews between disgraced former president Richard Nixon and British
talk-show host David Frost, has finally led to the DVD release of the original
interviews themselves. Though excerpts from these interviews have been used in
various Nixon and Watergate documentaries and TV shows over the years, the full
five-part interview special hasn't been aired since its original broadcast. It
consists of five 75-minute episodes, each of which covers a specific area of
Nixon's presidency: "Watergate," "Nixon and the World,"
"War at Home and Abroad," "The Final Days," and "The
Last Roundup," which encompasses various pieces not included in the other
episodes. For history and political buffs, especially those with an interest in
Watergate, they are essential viewing, but how about others? Will those who only
have a passing familiarity with Nixon's presidency or those who were attracted
by Frost/Nixon be interested?

Frankly, it's hard to see how. These are lengthy, dense conversations, full
of references to events that were fairly common knowledge in the late '70s but
are somewhat (or even completely) forgotten today. Anyone used to the talking
points and sound bites of the 24-hour news networks may find these rather slow
and impenetrable. In many ways, this is the last interview of an era when
politicians and journalists were expected to speak in complete sentences and
answer questions directly, even if not always honestly. Similarly, anyone
expecting the kind of shocking revelations seen in Frost/Nixon will be
disappointed. Frost's style wasn't for "gotcha" interviews, and Nixon
was far too smart to fall for any trap set by any journalist. This is more like
a debate, where the best moments occur when one of the participants, more often
than not Nixon, demonstrates flaws in logic or gaps in reciting facts. Viewers,
however, will have to listen carefully to the dense torrents of words and
recollections, and they will have to have some familiarity with Nixon's
presidency and the history of the '60s and the '70s in order to get a full
understanding of the interviews. When one show, for instance, devotes a good 10
minutes to a discussion of Nixon's failed Supreme Court nominees, anyone who has
never heard of the names Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell will be
mystified and should definitely hit the "Pause" button while checking
Wikipedia.

However, viewers who do come in to Frost/Nixon: The Complete
Interviews armed with a detailed knowledge of the political and historical
context of the era will find these fascinating. The actual details of the
Carswell and Haynsworth rejections, for instance, are ultimately irrelevant;
what's important is the justification Nixon gives for why he made the decisions
he made and why he feels they were rejected. In these answers, he crystallizes
the notion that defined his presidency, if not his political career: That he was
at war with an elite Eastern liberal establishment, represented by the
Democratic Congress, the media (particularly The Washington Post), and
mid-level bureaucrats scattered throughout government. He harps on these themes
constantly in almost every answer he gives, urging Frost and his viewing
audience to keep them in mind when assessing his presidency. Because this is not
a talking point manufactured in a PR session that can be easily abandoned but
the core belief that drove his every action, it can be astounding watching the
elaborate contortions he sometimes must attempt to justify some of his actions.
In the "Watergate" episode, for instance, he repeatedly insists that
launching a cover-up for political reasons, as opposed to criminal ones, is not
a crime in and of itself. As a tortuous bit of legal sophistry, this rivals
Clinton's definition of the word "is." In the "War" episode,
Nixon makes his infamous statement that when a president undertakes or orders
illegal actions, they are not illegal if he feels that they are in the national
interest. When Nixon makes statements like these, Frost doesn't necessarily
attack him, but then he doesn't really need to. It's enough to let them speak
for themselves and allow viewers to see what Nixon's thought process really is.
This is the main reason these interviews are so invaluable to political
historians: the lies and obfuscations Nixon tells are just as revealing as the
truth he's withholding. You will need to know a lot about the subject matter,
however, to really understand that.

Liberation Entertainment has released the five programs in a handsomely
packaged two-disc set, and while they did a good job with the shows themselves,
it's hard not to wish for more. The full-screen transfer looks good for
thirty-year-old videotape interviews, although there are some video glitches and
sound dropouts scattered throughout these shows. Curiously, the liner notes
promise both Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and 2.0 Stereo mixes, but the discs only
come with Stereo, and it's hard to see what good a 5.1 mix would do with a pair
of men talking. The biggest letdown is that there are no extras at all. The six
hours seen here (not 400 minutes, as asserted on the DVD cover) were culled from
over twenty-eight hours of interviews conducted over several weeks. Are there no
surviving outtakes that could have been included on this set? Even minor
snippets could have helped give a more detailed picture of how these interviews
were conducted. Furthermore, it's hard to believe that Sir David Frost and his
crew do not have some significant memories and thoughts to share on this event
some thirty years later. In order to get a small taste of those, you'll have to
watch a very brief featurette on the Frost/Nixon DVD, but it's hardly
long enough to really put these interviews in the real historical context they
deserve. Even a simple text timeline, glossary, or essay would have helped
immeasurably.

It's that lack of extras, ultimately, that makes Frost/Nixon: The
Complete Interviews really only appealing to a specific audience. Audiences
in 1977 would have been as familiar with names like Haldeman and Ehrlichman as
today's viewers are with names like Karl Rove and Condoleezza Rice, but today,
unless you really know this story well, you will find much of this confusing.
Some well-assembled extras could have helped modern viewers understand these
references, but sadly the set doesn't come with any. Coupled with the fact that
these are not the dramatic shoutfests of today's TV political interviews (let
alone those depicted in Frost/Nixon itself) makes it hard to recommend
this set to anyone who isn't already a huge political history buff.

The Verdict

For political history buffs, Frost/Nixon: The Complete Interviews is
definitely not guilty. For anyone else, it would be better to read a few books
on Nixon and Watergate first.